Blog 2023 Malcolm Blair-Robinson

The completely dysfunctional energy market controlled by speculators is one of the most spectacularly poor outcomes of privatisation and deregulation. Added to well meaning, but over zealous efforts of the green lobby to reduce energy consumption, there is now a burden of spiraling costs on every household and business, acting as a very real brake on economic growth.

When the Energy Secretary is able to stop thinking about driving licence points, he may be able to come up withn a plan. We will not achieve economic recovery without one.

The problem with our piecemeal taxation regime is that it does not provide an effective rudder to steer the economy at times of stress. Had the government had the guts to reform it to a single rate of income tax, as a constituent part of three linked but flexible core elements of taxation, income,vat and personal allowances, it would now be able to do something positive, without risking a debt led boom.

All the details are set out in the appropriate chapter of my book 2010 A Blueprint For Change. I know for a fact some of them read it. Whether they understood is another matter.

This blog has said before that the rule in a civil war is not to recognise rebels as a formal government until they overthrow the legitimate government. We applied the rule during the American Civil War and all civil wars since.  Moreover it is important to recognise that disparate forces can join in revolution only to burst apart after victory, creating endless strife. It was a mistake to formally recognise the rebels. Give them help, money, aid, but keep diplomatic channels on a legal footing.

Their reward for this endorsement has been to murder their top general, whom some suspected of treachery. Col. Gaddafi is laughing his head off. Once again, sadly, the Foreign Office looks naive and incompetent. Like so many decisions of the Tory half of this coalition government it was a poor judgement call. This blog wonders if it came from 10 Downing Street, like most of the others.